I think the reason that comorbidities matter is that it helps create a salient risk level for the general population. Average Americans do not have any grasp of what their mortality rate is if they catch COVID. Franklin Templeton has a study showing just that notion (https://www.franklintempletonnordic.com/investor/article?contentPath=html/ftthinks/common/cio-views/on-my-mind-they-blinded-us-from-science.html). Why introducing this into the public debate is not to devalue the people who have the disease, but to provide confidence to those who don't. The fastest way to getting back to normal is to let people feel confident going about their daily duties.
For example, in my state, a 31-40 year old person has a 99.88% survival rate if they get COVID. This is based on easily available public data (my state has a really solid COVID dashboard). However, when I ask people in that age range what they think their survival rate is, they often say 90% or so. They believe they have a 1 in 10 chance of dying from COVID. There is a ton of misinformation out there, and there's a ton of uninformed people as well.
Educating people about the causal factors of death is important to educating them about the realities of their risk levels and allowing them to take informed autonomy over their risk preferences. Think about it this way, if every single COVID death had eczema, people with eczema would realize "Crap, I need to take this real serious..." (As would people who frequently come in contact with people with eczema) Likewise when you tell them that thr mortality rate of a person without any secondary factors approaches zero, they can readjust their thinking.
Showing data that suggest most people who die from this are really old (median death age is 76) or really sick (avg comorbidities is 2.6) doesn't mean we don't care about those people, but means that we should be capable of isolating my actual risk level and the risk level of the people I care about/interact with frequently.
PS: Obesity isnt listed as often as you would think as a comorbidity. Neither is diabetes if you're under 55.
I think the reason that comorbidities matter is that it helps create a salient risk level for the general population. Average Americans do not have any grasp of what their mortality rate is if they catch COVID. Franklin Templeton has a study showing just that notion (https://www.franklintempletonnordic.com/investor/article?contentPath=html/ftthinks/common/cio-views/on-my-mind-they-blinded-us-from-science.html). Why introducing this into the public debate is not to devalue the people who have the disease, but to provide confidence to those who don't. The fastest way to getting back to normal is to let people feel confident going about their daily duties.
For example, in my state, a 31-40 year old person has a 99.88% survival rate if they get COVID. This is based on easily available public data (my state has a really solid COVID dashboard). However, when I ask people in that age range what they think their survival rate is, they often say 90% or so. They believe they have a 1 in 10 chance of dying from COVID. There is a ton of misinformation out there, and there's a ton of uninformed people as well.
Educating people about the causal factors of death is important to educating them about the realities of their risk levels and allowing them to take informed autonomy over their risk preferences. Think about it this way, if every single COVID death had eczema, people with eczema would realize "Crap, I need to take this real serious..." (As would people who frequently come in contact with people with eczema) Likewise when you tell them that thr mortality rate of a person without any secondary factors approaches zero, they can readjust their thinking.
Showing data that suggest most people who die from this are really old (median death age is 76) or really sick (avg comorbidities is 2.6) doesn't mean we don't care about those people, but means that we should be capable of isolating my actual risk level and the risk level of the people I care about/interact with frequently.
PS: Obesity isnt listed as often as you would think as a comorbidity. Neither is diabetes if you're under 55.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm